Because ARNO needs your help now more than ever, I am asking for support for this organization by way of volunteers still needed, financial contributions, donations of supplies, etc. and unfortunately, because of the unfounded allegations that are being stated far and wide, I find it necessary to reply to the allegations made regarding ARNO in order to justify my request for help for the organization. Please understand this, I am an independent rescuer/activist, etc.....I have worked on my own since the beginning but have chosen to advocate for ARNO for months now because I believe ARNO started out for a good cause and the people I do see at ARNO are still trying to continue with that cause.
1. I suspect that many of the individuals who are caring for animals in post-Katrina New Orleans are not "educated" in the care of animals, myself included. Any education I have is through self-education....listening learning, reading, etc., but nevertheless, no degree.
2. I visit the warehouse at least every other day if not more and I can attest to the fact that yes there are numerous cats and many dogs and they are all in fact caged and/or kenneled......ARNO is not a cage-less sanctuary.
3. It is hot at the facility; however, there are numerous donated fans placed in every area of the facility and as most of you now know, because of all the attention drawn to the heat, ARNO was the fortunate recipient of generously donated INDUSTRIAL cooling fans which are expected any day. I wish I had called attention to the heat myself so that ARNO might have benefited earlier for the sake of the animals it assists; however, I have personal knowledge and reviewed myself the ambient temperature of the hottest spot at the facility and am also aware that people in authority who must enforce heat/cold guidelines with "sheltered" animals have checked as well and because the facility was not shut down, I can only assume there was no infraction.
4. Volunteers are "vetting" ANY animal that requires it, which means that much like what goes on at my own home, a feline nostril is often suctioned, an abandoned kitten may be tube fed, Clavamox often saves the day (I am never without it), Droncit always cures the tapeworm as long as you followup with the second dose, Advantage does often cause an animal to foam at the mouth, Karo syrup will do in a pinch if no IV with fluids is available and ringworm will in fact challenge the most dedicated animal lover. As an individual who cares about the animals still on the street, I am thankful that ARNO, and any other grass roots organization which seeks to get more of those animals off the street, are in fact administering whatever attention is needed, medical and otherwise, to these innocent creatures who more often than not, are rescued in less than optimum health.
5. In the past 3-4 months, the random people I have seen at the ARNO facility is Jackie....the long-term resident volunteer, yes volunteer, who quit his life whereever it used to be (I am still not sure, but I know he is not local)........Jackie works animal care everyday, in fact, he is an expert at dog poop and works day and night to clean the kennels, walk the dogs if no volunteers are there to do so, and he does it with a smile......recently, his sleeping quarters were in fact upgraded from a tent in the rear yard to the smallest interior room. With long term volunteers having gone back to their lives (and rightfully so) I think ARNO realizes how much they do rely on Jackie and to offer him a small bit of comfort, a carpeted floor instead of white rocks, well it helps him out and the upside is that Jackie is now closer to the felines who do require ICU stay...they are indoors.
6. I'm not sure if 90 is the correct number, but ARNO does have a lot of cats.......more kittens than I would have guessed were out there, but thanks to Alley Cat Allies and the Feline Forum back in May, many of those litters were taken off the street. As you may or may not know, 68 of them found new homes, most in other states. More are scheduled to be transported out this month and because of the generous donations of those fans, ARNO will be able to allocate funds (which were donated for fans after attention was brought concerning the heat) to pay for fuel to assure that the transport does take place. Hopefully, with the new awareness that ARNO still needs help for specific missions, the remaining cats/kittens will be able to head to a forever home, instead of the temporary home in which they now reside, often in the heat, but with the ability to sleep and eat and avoid predators/demolition/construction/starvation, etc. that they use to face in the desolation called New Orleans. These cats did not come from other shelters, they came directly off the streets, the same streets that I continue to feed on daily and the same streets that I continue to count new heads on daily.
7. Although I don't know if 90 is the correct number of cats housed at ARNO, I can speak knowledgeably about 1 cat....I like to call him Oscar. Oscar is a grouch, hence his name and although I am not sure about which street Oscar used to live on,I can tell you from what he used to look like, it was a mean street. Oscar is a feral tomcat and for any of you who know ferals, you know that Oscar wasn't likely to make friends among ARNO volunteers. No surprise, Oscar would "thwack" his cage everytime someone walked by and I have been told that they would just hear the sound of his paw hitting the front of the cage.
Well, that's all I needed to hear....you see, although I have been accused of self-absorption, I really am absorbed in these animals and I love a challenge of a hardened feral.....I have never met one that didn't eventually become a different cat, with love, patience and understanding of the feral cat. I will have to take a picture of Oscar this evening when I visit and hopefully I will be able to find a picture of when he came in to ARNO.......Oscar loves to be brushed, Oscar loves to be scratched, but not just behind his ears, Oscar loves to have his belly scratched and in the past week I have been working to determine just what type of person truly deserves the love and companionship that Oscar has to give.....it won't be just anybody, it will have to be somebody who understands Oscar's background and that he is not one of those playful, zinging all the time cats.....no, Oscar needs a couch potato who is just like him. Unfortunately, Oscar will have to remain in his cage until ARNO can find him the right home and I am going to try to help them do that.
8. Ringworm and coccidia......where to start......during the Feline Frenzy, I was shocked at the chaos and was often questioned by non-volunteers and yes, I did not like the fact that so many kittens had both of these conditions, but, from my own experience, I know that many came into ARNO worse off. In fact, a very emaciated mama cat and her little babies, all who eventually contracted ringworm and poor Mama often required fluids......these were the little family that a feeder found taped in a box, sealed in that box, remember them? It broke my heart to see mama cat not eat, and I hated to watch one of the little siamese babies snuffle and try to breath after he, like many others, came down with upper respiratory illness.....but as I would watch Robin suction out each and every one of their noses, I knew that they had a better chance of a LIFETIME of happiness, if they could just get past this brief period of misery. I believe the remaining kittens of that litter are scheduled on the next transport and I often wonder what their lives would hold for them instead had they remained right where they were, in that box.
I can tell you that the cats I see now, have seen for weeks, at ARNO facility, are overall, healthy, happy, playful, loving cats, but, they are in fact in cages and ARNO needs fosters, ARNO needs adopters, good homes, and until that happens, they will remain cared for by people who may not hold a degree in animal care, people who may make the mistake of transmittal blunders (every day, every animal is another lesson learned.....I contracted ringworm years ago from my own cat because of my ignorance, but I won't ever again) and although I will have to get back to you on the specific number, and I will, the percentage of felines at ARNO who currently have ANY medical condition is low.....2 litters with ringworm that I am aware of and ironically, when I recently tried to locate a stringy toy to play with one of those kittens (she is a little feralish too) I couldn't find a single toy.....seems Robin had seen a well-meaning, but uninformed volunteer use one of those toys in the ringworm cage and than proceed to another......all the stringy type toys were tossed that day with another learning experience acquired and shared.....don't share the toys, they too can spread ringworm.
9. Any verbal or written agreement allegedly made to not accept another animal at the ARNO facility, whether in existence or not, would have resulted in my never volunteering at ARNO again........ARNO is not equipped to be a shelter and ARNO shouldn't take animals in, but the bottom line is that they have to when a feeder finds a feline family taped in a box, or when and individual shows up with a dog that is languishing in the back yard because the owner died and the owner's son won't feed it......you get my point? I took two kittens to ARNO myself, they were tied off underneath a house, a house that I feed at in a deserted, yes, still deserted area of New Orleans.....as much as I think I am more informed than the average person, I still have the same fears and concerns and thought that if I brought those babies to the animal shelter, they would eventually take their last breath filled with gas.....and I am not sorry I took them to ARNO.....they both stayed in a cage, in the exterior breezeway that is hot, and now they both are gone.....gone to a home, a new life, in another state, and they have a chance. And then there is Tonti, yes that poor mangy piece of filth, you know, the one I wrote about on my blog, "Puppies make you smile...unless they make you cry" well, her sibling succumbed early on from the distemper that is raised as an issue on this forum, and it was sad, very sad. But I am happy to say that when I see Tonti now, happy, bouncy, beautifully coated Tonti, it is because she comes to visit for the day, along with her new family, the triplet girls who volunteer at ARNO because they love animals.
10. Whatever allegations are being made concerning feuding between ARNO and any other humane organization, I won't comment upon....I don't know what issues are between any groups directors/boards, nor do I care, and what's more, one group does not acquire my respect, my willingness to help, my dedication to the animals involved, simply by "airing dirty laundry" in public.......I am the public, I am not ARNO nor any other group and no amount of discussion concerning feuding/etc. between the groups is going to make me abandon animals that I care about......if nothing else, it's only going to make me want to help those animals more. So, if in fact is it true that the leadership at ARNO is lacking, than I am inclined to stay the course for the animals' sakes.......they matter as much as the animals being helped by SAF or any other organization.......ARNO's "crimes" are not their crimes, and so please, let's keep the real issue at hand, the animals, the issue at hand
11. I will address the raised issue of ARNO owing obscene amounts of money" regarding vet care for rescued animals......I have no way of knowing if this is true or not, however, as far as I am concerned, this is good to know and I will do my best to get a letter out today to the HSUS, the ASPCA and any other major funding organizations so that quite possibly some funding can be allocated to ARNO so that they no longer have to operate without funds, and they no longer have to function without assistance from organizations which may or may not have received larger amounts of Katrina related funding than ARNO has.
12. Finally, and for the record, although the meeting took place two weekends ago and before the really nasty stuff started to get underway, I had the privilege of being at the ARNO facility to listen to a briefing regarding pet evacuations. The briefing/meeting, when I arrived late to the facility, was being run by two women, one of which was the Director of Humane Law Enforcement for the Louisiana SPCA, and someone who has fought animal cruelty for years. She is probably one of the most knowledgeable individuals in this state regarding dog fighting, you see, she was an instrumental factor in taking down Floyd Boudreaux, the famous godfather of dogfighting. I have myself on one occasion given information to this individual and, ironically regarding a dog who really was forced to sit in his feces day after day after day, and as I had expected, she and the LA/SPCA rose to the occasion and removed the dog from his horrible conditions. Although I have not spoken to her directly regarding her opinion of ARNO, I did notice that she took a look around that day while others enjoyed refreshments and again this is only an assumption, but I wonder.....if the highest ranking animal cruelty officer/investigator in this state, did not see fit to shut ARNO down for deplorable and cruel conditions, after being within the facility herself, what is the real issue here?
Thank you for your continued support of Animal Rescue New Orleans, Lise McComiskey
New Orleans, Louisiana
